9 Pioneering Video Games EVERYONE Forgets
3. Starsiege: Tribes
Released for Windows in late 1998, this sci-fi FPS sequel to 1994’s Metaltech: Earthsiege kickstarted the Tribes series (which lasted until 2012’s Tribes: Ascend).
That’s not its greatest contribution to gaming, however, as Starsiege: Tribes also happened to offer a squad-based online multiplayer-only experience years before the style became profitable, adored, and broadly accessible.
Set in the 40th century, it sees a few factions of humanity – including Children of the Phoenix, Blood Eagle, Diamond Sword, and Starwolf – doing battle across roughly 40 levels of varying topography and climates (from futuristic buildings to snow-covered planets).
Furthermore, class-based teams could compete in modes such as Find and Retrieve, Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Capture and Hold, and Defend and Destroy. Each member of the squad could choose different weapons, vehicles, and armor, too, as well as use environmental tools – turrets, sensors, etc. – for maximum offensive and defensive advantages.
If those features and backdrops sound familiar, well, they should, as numerous successors (namely, Halo, Far Cry, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Destiny, Fortnite and Killzone) used at least some of them over the ensuing decades.